Ijoid, and a Family Position That Is Not Settled

Izon is the largest language of the Ijaw people of the Niger Delta, and it belongs to a group called Ijoid whose classification is genuinely unresolved. Ijoid is usually placed within Niger-Congo, but it sits apart from every other branch, its basic word order differs from the Niger-Congo norm, and some specialists have argued that the relationship is too distant to demonstrate. The atlas records that as an open question rather than filing the language under a family heading that may not hold. The delta itself shapes the religious vocabulary the language carries. Settlements sit on creeks reached by canoe, and the water spirits, the owuamapu, are addressed as neighbours with interests and tempers rather than as remote powers; masquerade brings them into the town in visible form, and the same word can name a spirit, its mask and the performance.

Christianity has been present in the delta for well over a century and most Ijaw are now Christian, so the older material is carried alongside church membership rather than instead of it, which is the ordinary situation across the region and not a sign that either is insincere. The delta itself has shaped the modern religious situation as much as the ancient one. Oil extraction since the 1950s has damaged the creeks and fishing grounds that the older ritual life is organised around, and both church congregations and the custodians of the water spirit shrines have been involved in the protest movements that followed, which is a case of an environmental dispute and a religious one being the same dispute.